New Friends

Tomorrow will be the last day of this Leadership Matters course and it will be a bit sad to say goodbye to the wonderful people I have met here. On the very first day we did a thing where we learned how to remember people's names. And it was amazing how quickly we all learned each other's names by doing that! Now all those names have become not just faces, but individual personalities and many of those have become friends. Because the course has been very interactive we have gotten to know each other very well.

In small coaching groups we have worked together on the skills we were learning, listening to each other's talks and discussing together our plan of action for this or that assignment. We have shared our job descriptions and we have played games in the coffee shop. That's been one of the real perks here - a place to go for a latte at the end of the day! We don't have coffee shops in Moldova. Each of us also took turns leading the daily devotions and that included our new skill of story telling with a message. All the devotions were really touching.

The weeks have been fairly intensive as classes were from 8.30 am to 6 pm and then in the evening there was usually homework. After I got back to my room I would then try to get caught up on any e-mails I had received from work, dealing with things that had to be kept current back in Moldova.

The place we are staying is beautiful and the manor house is also used as a Bible college. Most of the students here seem to be American as it is an American-based ministry, Calvary Chapel, that runs the facility. As part of their program, a service component of 8 hours per week, the students staff the place in most instances and they are all really really friendly and helpful. The food has been great - and lots of it!

Our training team has consisted of people from Holland, England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the USA.

One of the highlights for me has been a piece of networking that I have been able to do. There is a guy on our team in Moldova who wants to serve the Lord cross-culturally. He believes that God is specifically calling him to a largely unreached people group called the Tuareg in West Africa. OM does not work in the country where he wants to go, or among those people, so we have been looking for someone who does so that we can develop a partnership that will facilitate his going to that country. How interesting it was to me when one of the participants here stood up and said that he worked among the Tuareg in the desert of West Africa!! I have been able to get lots of information from him and establish a connection that could possibly be the answer to helping our friend serve in the country to which he feels called. Sometimes I stand in awe of how the Lord orchestrates our lives and our relationships. The Lord's purposes stand firm!